Diaspora Project

The great Portuguese navigations of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and the process of colonial expansion that followed them opened new paths for comunication and cultural exchange between Europe and the world, in which Portugal was undisputedly a pioneer. This was not - it should be stressed unequivocally - an idyllic and harmonious process of intercultural dialogue: it was characterized, as were all colonialisms in all eras of the History of Mankind, by violence, military agression, territorial occupation, economic exploitation, slave trade and religious intolerance. But on the other hand, it soon demonstrated on the part of the Portuguese colonizers a strong curiosity about cultural differences, which differs from the hermetic nature of the civilizational matrix of other, later, European imperialisms, such as the French, the Dutch and particularly the British. The high rate of ethnic integration which defined from a very early stage the Portuguese colonial societies - a consequence, of course, of the limited presence of European women in the first expeditions, but also a sign of a desire less restrained by racial prejudice - was accompanied by a clear desire to taste local cuisines with their exotic ingredients, by a fascination with the decorative motives of tapestries, ceramics and porcelain from each region, by the temptation to try out songs and dances with different, seductive rhythms and melodies. Portuguese colonial domination tried to impose on each dominated territory the matrix of the artistic and cultural practices of the Kingdom, particularly those associated with Christianity, not only knew how to adapt that matrix to locally available materials but did not hesitate to incorporate in it many of the elements of the artistic expressions found in each land and continent. Of all the European colonial powers, Portugal was undoubtedly the one in whose Culture there was a higher degree of integration of Asian, African and South-American influences, and the Portuguese colonial empire thus became a space of intense circulation, interaction and fusion of cultural models.

This predisposition towards intercultural crossover was already part of the very essence of Iberian Cultures, as the result of several centuries of successive processes of fusion, first between Celtic and Greco-Roman models, and later between Christian, Arabic and Hebrew ones. The experience of cultural miscegenation was, ultimately, part of our genetic civilizational heritage and maritime expansion merely widened the gamut of potential ingredients for it. In any case, both in mainland Portugal and in the various Portuguese colonies, we witness, soon after the arrival of the Portuguese, the development of hybrid artistic practices reflecting an intense dialogue, at the grassroots level, between the various cultures presentee - a dialogue always, inevitably, shaped by the hierarchy of colonial Power but surprisingly open to exchanges and to mutual learning. Thus, in the field of Music, for instance, we find already in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries Amerindian and Afro-Brazilian rhythms, just as in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries the Lisbon theatres and salons were literally invaded by the Brazilian Lunduns and Modinhas, soon to be joined by Fado, to the great amazement of foreign travellers who looked upon this cultural interaction as a mere sign of decadence. These examples of crossover that reached the Kingdom were, on the other hand, the consequence of the processes of cultural interaction taking place in the colonies themselves, where they produced new fusion genres in Music and Dance and enlarged the spectrum of the traditional artistic practices of the local populations. And it must be stressed that these exchanges took place not only on the level of "erudite" Music but affect all social strata - there is not a single sector of the colonial societies of the Portuguese Empire that was not touched in its artistic practices and expressions by this interaction.

Is not surprising, therefore, that long after the end of the Portuguese colonial experience the Portuguese-speaking world remains such a fertile territory for intercultural expressions which bear testimony to the centuries-long contact and mutual challenge between models originating in different continents, and which remain as living practices in the popular traditions of each region. What Sete Lágrimas presents offers us again, in this second album within the their Diaspora project, is a voyage through written and oral repertories, both recent and remote and both high and lowbrow which reflect this historical experience of six centuries of intense artistic sharing in a world connected for the first time by the Portuguese ships and characterized throughout this long period by light and shade, pain and joy, violence and passion, all of which can be found in this Music.

JOÃO SOEIRO DE CARVALHOEthnomusicologistUniversidade Nova de Lisboa/INET-MD/Instituto de Etnomusicologia

“I am so involved in organ musicThat my imagination wanders through the world…”(Wu Yushan, Jesuit missionary in 17th century China1)

Sounds, imagination, journeying. Three facilitators of the creative universe of the Portuguese diaspora that gave rise to a vast repertoire – still largely unknown. From them were born new galaxies of sound, spreading to the four corners of the world, known as music but also by many different names. The sounds of voices, of instruments, of the bell “that kindles the dreams of monks”2. The sounds of reinóis, of merdejkas, of cafres, of malaios, of a human palette without precedent in the history of humanity.

In the 15th century Portugal embarked upon an enterprise with unsuspected consequences for the field of performance practice in many cultures throughout the globe. In Portugal, in the first place: the novelties brought by the navigators, by the heathens of other lands, by the immigrants who established themselves in Lisbon, did not take long to become apparent musically and to give rise to mixed forms and genres. Of many of these we have no record. Concerning some, however, there remain documents which allow a reconstruction, and they astonish us by their modernity and scale. Is it not so? Hear the proof in the vilancicos negros from the 17th century that waited centuries in the Monastery of Santa Cruz in Coimbra for a second opportunity3.

Consequences elsewhere, too. Firstly because of the strong impression that the music taken by the Portuguese made on so many people in so many and such distant cultures. Also, because of the crucible of musical creativity that contact between cultures provided, and from which arose genres that deeply marked entire nations in distant parts of the world. Is it not so? What, then, of the Kroncong, of Portuguese influence, one of the most popular genres in 20th century Indonesia?

Liturgical music, transported by missionaries from various religious orders, was practiced in the churches of Brazil, the ecclesiastical patronage of the East, and later in African missions. Of such practice we have documentation: scores, rules concerning the use of different genres and instruments, etc. The teaching of this music was undertaken intensively in colleges and seminaries outside Portugal, and it is known that there were many native clerics who learned the rules of liturgical music and adopted them and adapted them to local usage.

In the field of secular music, because in most cases we are dealing with oral traditions, there is much less knowledge of the processes of contact between Portugal and other areas of the world. That there was contact, and on a grand scale, there can be no doubt. However, and with some exceptions in Brazil, where continuity was apparent, the means and what resulted from them, have still, in many cases, to be clarified. It is beyond doubt that the configuration of repertories and genres, in Portugal and outside, came about as a result of processes of contact: fado and morna, to mention but two, are paradigmatic examples. To shed light on these processes is an undertaking that awaits a greater musicological effort.

The Portuguese language was a platform for the process of creating genres and repertoires of contact. Whether in their European configuration, whether in others that became established in Brazil, Africa or in the Indian Ocean (Brazilian Portuguese, Cape Verde Portuguese, the Papiá Kristang of Macau and even the Portugis Tugu of Jakarta), the language was an important vehicle for the development of affinities and contrasts; important in terms of meanings and subject matter (the saudade – the longing – which pervades so many genres) and in terms of musico-poetic forms.

In the end, music is but the product of contacts, many contacts, arising from a peculiarly human impulse: that of travelling. The vagaries of history, and the dreams of many of its protagonists, have meant that the journey has become the great Portuguese chimera. The music we hear on this disc represents a little of the fantasy of its travellers.

FILIPE FARIASete Lágrimas

Besides caravels and the Cape of Good Hope, Portugal’s relationship with the world was born from a thirst for change. The Portuguese expansion of the fifteenth-century marked the start of a period of acculturation and miscegenation that mutually influenced the musical practices of the countries of the Discoveries and Portugal and changed the configuration of their collective DNA forever. Comprising three titles – ‘Diaspora.pt’ (2008), ‘Terra’ (2011) and ‘Península’ (2012) – the Diáspora project dips into the past and present of genres and musical forms associated with five continents, exploring new interpretive formulas employed in popular and classical music from the sixteenth to the twenty centuries, from the Iberian villancico to fado, the ‘black’ villancicos of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the Brazilian chorinho, African mornas and the traditional songs of Timor, Macau, India and Brazil, among other countries. An experimental frenzy inspired by journeys, paths, pilgrimages, land, water, homesickness and what remains today of all the days gone by.